Prometheus4 stands at Komsomolskaya Pier, Archangel; a dead hull awaiting destruction, powerless, cold, silent and dark.

Richard and Robin Mariner have just closed a deal to supply retired tankers to a Russian consortium. Properly disposed of, Prometheus4 represents profit for the consortium, Heritage Mariner and the environment. But Robin is despondent. Having spent the morning checking over Promethus4’s equipment with Richard’s Russian contact like a vulture looking for tasty pickings in a mouldering corpse, the glory days when the old tanker was the flagship of Heritage Mariner seem a long, long time ago . . .

Disturbed from her reverie by the attentions of a sinister-looking group of men, Robin finds herself seeking refuge in the blackness of Prometheus4, from where she makes a desperate phone call to Richard. But unbeknown to Robin, Richard has problems of his own. Incommunicado in Archangel police station, Richard is standing over the mutilated corpse of a young man, found aboard Prometheus4 that very morning. And the Russian investigators have good reason to believe that there are plenty more where that one came from . . .